Study: Most believe personalization key to success

While most marketers do believe personalization is key to their ad success, most also don't believe they - or the industry as a whole - are getting personalization right. That's the takeaway from new Evergage data.

Evergage has released their 2017 Trends in Personalization report, and among the more interesting findings is this: 88% of marketers believe their customers want a personalized experience that crosses devices, but nearly half say they don't think personalization continues to miss the mark where consumers are concerned.

For most, the challenges to personalization include budgetary restraints (53%) and a lack of personnel (52%), as well as skill barriers (42%).

"For most marketers, personalization is no longer on their wish-lists - it has become a must-have. Yet with that comes a responsibility to deliver," said Andy Zimmerman, CMO of real-time personalization platform provider Evergage. "The good news is, these challenges are nowhere near insurmountable - they're crumbling every day. High-impact, 1:1 personalization capabilities are increasingly accessible from both a cost and usability perspective, and marketers no longer have to be reliant on IT - they can create, launch and optimize campaigns quickly and easily themselves. What's more, a comprehensive personalization platform should make it easy to collect and act on customer data across channels and platforms to deliver tailored, relevant experiences within milliseconds."

Other interesting findings from the report include:

• 88% have seen increases because of campaign personalization
• 63% have seen conversion rate increases
• 61% report customer experience increases
• Nearly three-quarters are personalizing email, half are personalizing the company website
• 60% are personalizing based on customer location